Sophia Petrovna

"Sophia Petrovna" is one of the main books of Russian literature about the Great Terror. The famous story was written by the writer and editor Lydia Chukovskaya (1907—1996), daughter of Korney Chukovsky, in Leningrad during the winter of 1939—1940 without any hope for publication. In 1937, her husband was arrested and executed in '38. She spent two years in prison queues, unsuccessfully trying to find out his fate. Years later, Lydia Korneyevna would say about this terrible time: "I wanted to write a book about a society damaged in mind; the unfortunate, insane Sophia Petrovna is by no means a lyrical heroine; for me, this is a generalized image of those who seriously believed in the reasonableness and justice of what was happening…" In the mid-1960s, the story was published in the West, but in our country, it became available to readers only in 1988. This edition includes, in addition to "Sophia Petrovna," two autobiographical stories by L.K. Chukovskaya — "The Dash," centered around the short life of her repressed husband, a talented theoretical physicist, and "Dive Down," dedicated to the campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans" in the final years of Stalin's rule.

"With all conceivable merits of future stories and narratives, they will be written in a different era, separated from 1937 by decades. My story was written on the fresh trail of just recently occurred events. This is its distinction from works that will be dedicated to the years 1937—1938 at any time…" — Lydia Chukovskaya